Hidden Meanings behind your Doodles!

Do you ever find yourself drawing shapes, patterns and drawings in class when your focus of attention is elsewhere? Or do you scribble when waiting for someone or listening with pen in hand? Do you just sketch out of boredom? Do you draw in any idle moment? Do you doodle?!

I do! Though people may consider this habit as deliberate wastage of time but let me tell you what, doodles can carry a great deal of meaning and can sometimes be the source of inspiration.

It’s amazing how creative we can be without even trying! Strangely, doodles seem to take shape of their own accord, as if they had a life of their own in a parallel world. Printed letters grow faces and legs, an underlined word turns into a pile of boxes, or a decorative border appears round the edge. You may suddenly find a circled word transformed into a sun beaming down on a desert island, punctuation turned into arrows or flowers, or someone’s name emerging bold from a memo. Because we doodle without thinking, our doodles can be very revealing – like our body language that we are not aware of.

Let’s dig deep about doodles!

Doodle according to oxford dictionary means “A rough drawing made absent mindedly.”

Now the question is why do people doodle? It’s because Doodling helps relieve boredom and frustration. The urge to doodle gets stronger as stress levels rise. (Now you know why you doodle while studying for exams :P) Doodling is like a safety valve that allows pressure to be dispelled in a playful and creative way. When you are only half attending to what you are doing, (during lectures :D) you may find yourself thinking of something that has been at the back of your mind. Doodling maps the wandering of your mind as you plan a new venture, worry about money, or dream of a holiday. At an unconscious level this seemingly aimless pastime may actually be helping people sort out their problems.

I can tell you how important it is to draw because doodles can tell what individuals are like and where their special talents lie as doodling is also form of self-expression.

Studies have shown that doodling can free up short- and long-term memory, improve content retention and increase attention span. It can also produce creative insight, because “when the mind starts to engage with visual language, you get neurological access that you don’t have when you're in a linguistic mode”. WOW!!!

Many of us end up doodling similar things like sun, stars, boxes, arrows, hearts, flowers etc. Below are the interpretations of some common doodling symbols:

Geometrical shapes: Geometrical shapes may indicate that the person has got a rational and logical way of thinking. This person may also be a good planner.

Arrows, ladders: indicate that the person is ambitious, obsessed about some goals and looking forward to some achievements.

 Stars: indicate optimism and hopefulness.

 Flowers: May indicate that the person is sensitive, warm and kind.

 Hearts: Means that the person is suffering from Socio-anti-complex-bio-disorder, well… Just kidding ;) simply he is in love or in need of a relation.

Vehicle: Desire to escape from present situation or travelling.

Ugly Faces: May indicate that the person is not a social person, lacking self-confidence, bad tempered or even aggressive.

And there are many many more doodles that could’ve different meanings and interpretations. Just go and google your doodle if it didn’t make it to the above list. You never know what it could reveal about you!

So here we come to the conclusion knowing that our doodles are not just mere drawings but hide a great deal behind them. Also doodling gets neurons to fire and expands mind. With this mind blowing fact, taking a leave.

Until next time, cheers everyone and do a doodle today!

 

Samrah Bablani!